Reptile & Amphibian Forums

a little further down this forum i said that i'd take my cham to the vet because he's got shaky hands.
'thought i'd give you an update on that.
the vet said that it would have no use to take a blood sample from a 70gram cham since the amount of blood he'd have to take in order to make the tests would do more harm than any good.
he suspects that he hasn't got enough calcium and gave me a calcium solution of wich i have to give him 1 drop daily. should take him 3 weeks and the shaking should be better or gone and the appetite back to normal (he hasn't been eating as much as usual lately).
all the rest looks good and i (er.. i mean yussuf) got a compliment for his nice formed cask:
(on the pic he's sleeping )

The calcium mix the vet gave you will help in the mean time, but for long term you need to evaluate your gutload, dusting, and feeding routine so this doesn't happen again. Can you describe your dusting, lighting, gutloading now?

well.. maybe i don't gutload my feeding animals too well..
i give then fresh fruit unsweetened cereals veggies and the sort.
as for the cham i dust the critters once a week with zoo med's reptivite. i used to do that every second day when he was still young.
he takes a bite out of his phylodendron from time to time.
i mist the cage for a minute thrice daily with a timer. i have a dripper installed that is on the whole day.
i provide uv lighting (tubes r 5 months old now) three times a day for half an hour. and i take him outside whenever i get the chance since nothing can replace real unfiltered sunlight.
oh.. and for calcium i always have a bit of crushed sepia in his cage but he never went for it.

OK, a couple of things I see right off. The dust you are using does NOT contain calcium, just vitamins. You need to get a mineral/calcium dust such as ReptiCal or Minerall 1 (with Vit D3 for indoor chams). Dust with minerals once a week and the vitamins about once a month. Also, the UV lighting should be on for at least 12 hours a day. No UV bulb is anything like the sun, so you can safely use them for longer hours. This should help!

hey carlton

thanks for your advice! i will make the necessary adjustments right away!
as for the uv light i wasn't sure if my "on-time" was right since i found very controversive views about uv in the literature. in one of my books it is even said that chams don't need no uv light at all. i got 2 arcadia fluorescent tubes in his cage. and i'll turn them on longer now!
thanks again!

loko

by the way.. i checked the reptivite... and it does contain calcium:
reptivite link

couldnt help noticing the lump near his rear legs.. did the vet explain what that was?